I think it's time we move past "Japan is good, US is bad"
PostPosted:Thu Mar 22, 2001 10:52 pm
<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Remember the days people say how the Japanese FF4(2US) is harder, that in FF6(3US) you can get Leo, and how the FF7 Japanese version you can revive Aeris? Well, the truth is that even in Japan you can't get Leo or revive Aeris, and FF4J really isn't that much harder (they took out some items and commands like permanent HP+ stuff and Dark Wave, which arguably make the game easier). And don't get me started on the Japanese VA (seiyuu). I've talked to Histohi Doi, who is considered THE source on seiyuus (last time I checked, his Seiyuu database has hits measured in hundreds of millions), and he tells me that in Japan, voice actors are NOT asked how well they can do role X, role Y, etc. They're asked how well they can do a Megumi Hayashibara role, or Inoue Kikuko, or several of the various big names. One of the people in my Anime club seems to think the evil Anime girl laugh is really cool and indicative of voice acting quality and always tries to replicate it. I'd rather listen to the Mac (I think it's a Mac) synthesized "HA HA HA HA" from Zero Wing movies than listening to some high pitched psycho laugh. I go watch a random Anime and you can immediately group what you heard. There's the generic male hero voice, generic young male hero voice, generic villian voice, Megumi voice, Inoue voice, and similarly very identifiable stereotypes. Would you rather have the American Roll Caskett who sounds like a normal tennager girl or her Japanese version which will undoubtedly be the generic screaming high-pitched girl (there's usually one of those in Anime)? It's true once in a while we get gems like "Die monster! You don't belong in this world!" But even then I'd rather listen to this rather than listening to the Japanese counterpart which has the character type voices down a science. If it's a tomboy character they want Megumi, or someone who can sound like her. If it's your ditzy Goddess type character you want Inoue or someone who sounds like her. My friend was playing a complete random selection of Anime over the break on his DVD, and I can break down about 99% of all characters into one of the few stereotypes. That's just sad.
I think the reason for this might be that something sounds really cool when you don't understand it. If you know what they're saying then you can see where they messed up and whatnot, but if it's all in Japanese you can't tell if it's got the right kind of inflections and whatnot. There's a guy in my Japanese class who likes to make random inflections on common phrases. When we're doing skits which involve something like "Hi Joe, I'm going to watch a movie today." he can make it sound like he's reading Shakespeare, and frankly you've no idea of knowing if someone's just making this stuff up or not if you can't understand it.
This is even more so with RPG. All RPG are better in Japanese because no one knew what the hell was going on, so they assumed the best. For the longest time I've been saying Kid is really different in the Japanese version, and then one day I realized duh, she was just the obligatory trash talking tomboy all RPG needed to have one these days (along with the clueless ditz heroine). I think Mitsuda didn't agree with the cheap characterization, and Kid was his favorite character, so he gave her a theme that's far more appropriate. Certainly if you look at the lyrics of Radical Dreamers: Unstealable Gem that's supposed to be in Kid's perspective, it looks nothing like how she's like in the game, English or Japanese version. I always assumed that since her theme is soft and beautiful she must match that elegance, just like if you listened to Aeris's theme you wouldn't think she's a trash-talking Megumi tomboy, since I don't really know what she's saying.
The MMX5 dialogues that usually go like "XYZ surrender yourself." "Die X!" seems far more impressive when you've no idea what they're saying. I believe people used to thought Grandia's plot was deep when they played it on the import since no one knew what the hell was going on, and of course if you ever played the PSX version, you know it's more like fetch quest 101 and 2 for 1 deals on miracles (which isn't necessarily bad, but deep it is not). Or how about Lunar, the vaunted bastion of Animeness? Do you really want Megumi as your Lemina, generic soft spoken girl as Mia Ausa (well, I guess this didn't change much in the English version), Hisakawa Aya (generic female voice 02) as Jane, Inoue "Founder of the Goddess Voice" Kikuko as Luna and Althena, the_guy_that_sounds_like_Tenchi as Alex, generic villian voice as Ghaleon, and so on? Well, I thought Chisa Yokohama did a reasonably good job as Lucia, but it's not like Lucia has a tough role to act out.
I swear, the entire Japanese voice acting industry can be done with a voice synthesizer, and no one would be able to tell the difference...</div>
I think the reason for this might be that something sounds really cool when you don't understand it. If you know what they're saying then you can see where they messed up and whatnot, but if it's all in Japanese you can't tell if it's got the right kind of inflections and whatnot. There's a guy in my Japanese class who likes to make random inflections on common phrases. When we're doing skits which involve something like "Hi Joe, I'm going to watch a movie today." he can make it sound like he's reading Shakespeare, and frankly you've no idea of knowing if someone's just making this stuff up or not if you can't understand it.
This is even more so with RPG. All RPG are better in Japanese because no one knew what the hell was going on, so they assumed the best. For the longest time I've been saying Kid is really different in the Japanese version, and then one day I realized duh, she was just the obligatory trash talking tomboy all RPG needed to have one these days (along with the clueless ditz heroine). I think Mitsuda didn't agree with the cheap characterization, and Kid was his favorite character, so he gave her a theme that's far more appropriate. Certainly if you look at the lyrics of Radical Dreamers: Unstealable Gem that's supposed to be in Kid's perspective, it looks nothing like how she's like in the game, English or Japanese version. I always assumed that since her theme is soft and beautiful she must match that elegance, just like if you listened to Aeris's theme you wouldn't think she's a trash-talking Megumi tomboy, since I don't really know what she's saying.
The MMX5 dialogues that usually go like "XYZ surrender yourself." "Die X!" seems far more impressive when you've no idea what they're saying. I believe people used to thought Grandia's plot was deep when they played it on the import since no one knew what the hell was going on, and of course if you ever played the PSX version, you know it's more like fetch quest 101 and 2 for 1 deals on miracles (which isn't necessarily bad, but deep it is not). Or how about Lunar, the vaunted bastion of Animeness? Do you really want Megumi as your Lemina, generic soft spoken girl as Mia Ausa (well, I guess this didn't change much in the English version), Hisakawa Aya (generic female voice 02) as Jane, Inoue "Founder of the Goddess Voice" Kikuko as Luna and Althena, the_guy_that_sounds_like_Tenchi as Alex, generic villian voice as Ghaleon, and so on? Well, I thought Chisa Yokohama did a reasonably good job as Lucia, but it's not like Lucia has a tough role to act out.
I swear, the entire Japanese voice acting industry can be done with a voice synthesizer, and no one would be able to tell the difference...</div>